


thou art the sweetest poison

by clarnicamhalai



Category: Being Human (UK)
Genre: Gen, Love/Hate, M/M, Self-Destructive Tendencies, sort of unrequited love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-14 02:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18043676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarnicamhalai/pseuds/clarnicamhalai
Summary: Cutler will never win this game, but he is the only one playing.





	thou art the sweetest poison

**Author's Note:**

> Edited and updated from ff.net. I still love this jaunt into Cutler and Hal's relationship - despite never writing anything else for this fandom before/since.

Cutler hates the way he reacts to Hal’s presence.

It feels far too much like coming home.

 

+

 

The man is a monster, for all he masquerades as a man; after all it was _he_ who bestowed this cursed gift on the unsuspecting human Nick; _he_ who destroyed Nick’s life; _he_ , Hal Yorke, who murdered Nick’s wife.

But that is decades past.

Decades enough, it seems, to turn the tables upside down.

 

+

 

“It isn’t fair.”

Cutler has fought this world for years – fangs and bloodlust were not so easy for him to accept. He had struggled to kill, yet struggled to refrain, and tore himself to pieces as his mind tried so very hard to come to terms with its new design.

There are no struggles now.

He has no qualms when it comes to killing men – or women – heck, he’s killed kids a few times simply because they were there. Wrong place, wrong time; survival of the fittest: that’s the way of the world, isn’t it? It’s a painful truth, especially when fangs as sharp as knife-points are sinking through smooth skin into a jugular vein.

But that is very much beside the point.

“It isn’t fair,” he reiterates agitatedly, gaze flitting from the walls to Hal, his henchmen, and back again. “You can’t say that to me. Not now. Not after what you’ve done to me.”

Hal looks up at him with wide eyes. They do not beg or ask for forgiveness. In fact, the only emotion Cutler can read in them is the most sincere of apologies and it _hurts_. Because Hal does not apologise. Hal is cruelty; Hal laughs and walks hand in hand with destruction, ruin and pain. He does not entertain emotions like regret.

Except, _apparently_ , this Hal does. Fifty-five years has changed him and _it_ _isn’t fair_.

 

+

 

Hal kneels the minute the other vampires are exiled from the room. Cutler simply watches. The younger vampire’s face is emotionless, but his fidgety edginess belies the internal strife rioting within him.

“I hate you,” he says eventually, and it almost isn’t even a lie.

_I understand_ , Hal wants to reply, but Cutler lashes out before the words can fall into existence. The dark-haired vampire hisses sharply through his teeth as his face whips to the left; his right cheek stings from the force of the backhand. He looks up at Cutler.

“Hate me,” he agrees quietly. “Hate me as I have learned to hate myself for all I have done.”

Silence descends on them like a cold winter mist, creeping and coating the room’s two occupants. Cutler will not break it; he won’t. Hal is here to answer to _him_. His body is almost vibrating with tenseness and his hands shake worse than those brief periods he has denied himself sustenance. He is close to breaking, but he lasts until the silence passes once more.

“I’m so sorry, Nick Cutler,” Hal breathes into the stillness of the room, his voice catching, and Cutler comes apart.

Two exhausted tears carve paths down his cheeks as he collapses onto the cold concrete floor. He presses the balls of his palms to his tear-blurred blue eyes as his frame shudders with the effort of holding the rest back.

Hal hangs his head.

Guilt is a horrible, pervasive feeling; he will never get used to the way it curls inside him.

 

+

 

Hours pass, but all that is shared between them is grief. Grief, and the occasionally, brief, flair of anger.

 

+

 

Hal never expected to leave the building alive, certainly not without a fight anyway, so when he is eventually released he hesitates, but any words he might have thought to speak are stopped in their tracks when Cutler comments briefly, “If you say one fucking word I will kill you where you stand, Lord Harry or not.”

He hasn’t moved, refuses to look at his maker, but Hal wisely decides not to test the truth of his words.

There is Tom, after all, waiting (worrying, no doubt) at the house, and Annie and baby Eve, as well.

He leaves in silence.

Cutler watches through red-rimmed eyes as his maker leaves – again – and knows, deep down, that he will never win this game between them.

He will never win, and he is the only one playing.


End file.
